Saturday, December 5, 2015

Managing Work Place Security

Several years ago, we had the bi-polar wife
of one of our employees going through divorce enter our Chicago office with a
knife. It was the first time we had ever experienced anything like
that. As the CEO of our company, I immediately ordered that all of our offices install card key, cameras and
other security systems to help prevent something like this from ever
happening again. While it is very unlikely that a company would ever be struck by Terrorism from a foreign source, though the threat is real
around the world, Terrorism can come in many forms. We do have to worry
about disgruntled current or former employees or customers, marital problems, or deranged people
that for whatever reasons might strike one of our offices.

When I was a teacher years ago in the LA inner city, our
school, with very high fences, was always on lock down mode to keep potential gang
members, with guns, off campus. While theoretically someone could
have jumped over our very high fences, the LA City School System has its own
police force constantly on campus and on patrol. We were working in
a hardened site to help prevent gun violence on our campus.

While company offices are not fortresses, management must be vigilant to make sure that
only people authorized to be in our offices are in our offices. We must take security seriously to prevent a tragedy. Management’s first job is to
insure the safety of our employees at work. Given the world we face, we must take necessary precautions to make sure that we maintain a safe and secure work place.